Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We have moved from death to new life, from Lenten darkness to Easter light. And while Easter Sunday may have come and gone, it's effects are continually with us. This season has brought with it several new relationships, events, and signs of growth for Theopolis. We have been networking with…
In The People's Work , a social history of Christian Worship, Frank Senn summarizes the developments of the medieval period with regard to the Eucharist. He begins by challenging the assumption that medieval society was held together by “the church.” He notes that the church was often divided and conflicted,…
The structure of the Bible resembles something which was grown rather than built, composed rather than assembled. Its employment of “structure-as-sign” at every level from micro- to macrocosmic leads to the conclusion that a hermeneutic worthy of Scripture requires not only training in history, art and music but also the…
For some in first-century Israel, Easter was anything but good news. It was a terrifying surprise. For the rulers and powers that put Jesus to death, the idea that He had been raised by some power beyond their control was chilling. Early in Luke’s gospel, we're told that Herod thought…
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. (John 21:11) This is one of those texts in the Bible that many people puzzle over. It is not a puzzle…
God is not mocked, Paul says. God is mocked, says Matthew. Who’s right? The two are in perfect harmony, but to see that, we need to run through the passage again. We’ll see that at every point, the mockery is being turned against the mockers. At every point, mockery is…
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James says that the law is a mirror. We think he means that we read the law, it shows us flaws and blemishes, and we are convicted of sin. That’s not the way the image works in James. The man who looks in a mirror and turns away is not…
Julian “the Apostate” saw how the Christian church grew “due to philanthropy to strangers, burial of the dead and seeming purity of life.” Pagans needed to catch up, and this meant charity: “In every city,” he ordered, “numerous hostels should be established that strangers, whether or not of our faith,…
No American writer of the last fifty years even approximated the luxuriance of John Updike. In its lengthy obit, the NYT cites this from an early short story: “Snow fell against the high school all day, wet big-flake snow that did not accumulate well. Sharpening two pencils, William looked down…
“One cannot serve God and the Emperor,” Tertullian wrote. Early Christians were anti-imperial then? Not necessarily. When Celsus charged that Christians would leave the Emperor alone against the barbarians, Origen protested: “We help the emperor in his extremities by our prayers and intercessions more effectively than do the soldiers. Just…
Early Christians did not call for abolition, and even after the empire became Christian much of the traditional Roman social structure remained in place. Yet, Hermann Dorries writest that Christianity provided Constantine and the Christian emperors who followed with “the possibility of gradual amelioration.” Considering the central economic importance of…
In his first interview as President, Obama told Al-Arabiya that America needs to learn to listen because “all too often the United States starts by dictating.” Does anyone honestly believe that American diplomats go into the Middle East and starts by ordering everybody around? Of course, US diplomats have a…
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